How To Develop a Social Media Strategy: A Roadmap for Integration

by Shannon Paul on June 1, 2010

Hipster PDA | Moleskine

The problem with any new function in a business is deciding how it fits with existing operations. This could be the reason we see so many social media programs that operate in a sort of silo apart from other outreach.

The following list of questions and resources should provide a comprehensive roadmap for developing a strong social media strategy with clear organizational alignment. This is going to be a long post, so let’s get started!

The Foundation

1. Is Your Social Media Presence an Experiment?

If you’re not the kind of business that is open to experimenting with social media, skip to question #2. It’s really okay if you’re planning to experiment with social media in your business as long as the others in your business or client company understand that you’re experimenting. There are way different expectations when what you’re doing is clearly an experiment. There is also something positive to be said for exploring what is possible with something new and trying some different tactics before developing a clear plan with explicit goals and objectives. Having an experimental strategy is okay as long as everyone is on the same page. However, having a clear sense of the business strategy and needs of the organization should still help inform your approach.

2. What is Your Company’s Overarching Business Strategy?

Is your business about innovation, or being a fast follower in the marketplace? Is it about providing the best value or the best service? What is the overall value proposition? If you don’t know the answers to these questions, start digging. Or, if you’re the founder or CEO of a startup, think about the answers to these questions before launching a social media presence UNLESS you’re experimenting, but it’s good to know you’re experimenting (rather than failing). If you don’t know who you are, how will I know who you are? Beyond making sure there’s alignment, identifying the overall business strategy of your organization will help you prioritize where you should start — whether marketing could use some extension into social sites, or whether HR is struggling to recruit necessary talent.

3. What is the Parent Strategy?

Social media strategy should typically be a subset of an existing strategy — will yours be a subset of an HR, marketing, PR, customer service strategy, etc? Stand alone social media strategies tend to either operate in a silo — or naturally creep into other areas of business. The natural growth into existing areas of business can often create conflict over who should own, what budget should be responsible for operations, etc. If you’re experimenting, it’s good to think about how conflicts should be handled should this natural creep arise. If you’re planning strategically, it’s probably better to do your homework up front and clearly prioritize how social media will ideally spread into other areas of operations and make recommendations according to this prioritization schedule. Most social media proponents can readily identify several areas of business that can benefit from some form of social media integration — customer service, public relations, marketing, human resources, etc. Although there may be plenty of opportunities, it’s best to prioritize where to act first based on the dictates of the overarching business strategy. If your company prides itself on innovation, marketing might be the best place to focus social media integration, or maybe  start inside the organization to speed up collaboration. Companies focused on superior service might naturally lean toward beginning with customer service. Companies with a long sales cycle may benefit from applying social media strategy to public relations as a way to soften the market and increase brand awareness, share of voice, etc. For companies in a short sales cycle, marketing would probably be a better fit… Make sense?

4. How Will Social Media Boost the Effectiveness of the Parent Strategy?

This piece done right should provide the meat of your business case for allocating resources and identify which budget should get tapped for this social media strategy. As a side note, this piece should also consider the internal audience. How social media savvy is your organization as a whole? Depending on the current level of understanding, you may need to include some guidelines for approach that may be considered industry best practices in order to clearly manage expectations and explain how the company’s approach needs to be different in social channels, and how it will remain the same. Other items to consider in this section:

  • Include data to support your thesis that social media will indeed boost the effectiveness of the parent strategy.
  • Explain the social dynamics at play here and how they will ultimately contribute to the success of the organization. A social presence often requires giving something meaningful to the public while asking for little-to-nothing in return. Explain the benefits of sharing, promoting others and reciprocity… even if it seems obvious.
  • Put some skin in the game! If you want some of the budget, get ready to take on some of the work. Assign part of the parent strategy goals directly to your social media strategy
  • Select the RIGHT parent strategy goals for your social presence and assign social media-specific sub-goals. Outline exactly how achieving social media goals will accrue toward the goals of the parent strategy. For instance, if you’re assuming a piece of the sales goals, make sure to outline how social interactions will accrue to an actual sale — and be clear about how the channel should NOT be used i.e. to solicit sales directly or pump marketing messages into social channels all day long.

Taking on responsibility for existing goals will also help determine how much of the budget your efforts should receive. Can you make that work, or will you need to negotiate to increase the budget of the parent strategy? Adding on extra budget specifically for social media might work best, but consider carefully whether a stand-alone social media budget will make sense in the long term as use of social technology becomes more integrated into existing business practices.

Defining the Scope of Conversation*

5. What feeling do we want to inspire in others through our interactions?

What’s the takeaway for them beyond a “positive brand experience.” Get specific. If your brand is fun, it’s probably a good idea to extend that spirit of fun into your social web presence.

6. Will we be proactive in our conversations? Reactive? Both?

If you’re using social media to address customer service issues, a reactive strategy might be best unless you’re incorporating a loyalty or rewards program into the strategy. This can be flexible, but there should be primary and secondary purposes for the presence on the social web for branded profiles.

7. What are the on-brand messages we hope to deliver?

These should account for fewer than 20% of your interactions, but this is an important 20%. Keep in mind that these key messages should be adapted (not copied word for word) for establishing a point of view on the social web.

8. How will changes and updates to the on-brand messages be communicated within the team?

Staying on the same page is important for establishing a consistent presence and preventing mis-communication or misinformation from spreading in social networks.

9. How will on-brand messages be adapted for conversation in social networks. Examples are helpful.

As Phil Gomes says, “Having a ‘message’ is fine, it’s ‘messaging’ that sucks.”

9. What types of messages or updates can we provide that are off-brand, but still relevant?

There is still a relevance quotient that needs to be considered with respect to a branded social media presence. When you open up conversation to anything other than your brand, or give carte blanche to promoting others in general, you’re no longer focused on the wants and needs of your customers, but on the interpretation of the individual responsible for interacting on behalf of the brand. There should be room for improvisation, but the purpose behind the presence should not just be open to anyone’s interpretation. People follow branded social profiles for different reasons than they follow people. Some of the same principles apply, but not all of them. The question for anyone manning the front lines of a brand’s social presence is to consider points of conversation that are a good fit with the brand’s image, company stakeholders AND meaningful to its consumers? These off-brand (but within scope) messages should account for more than 80% of interactions on the social web.

10. What types of updates or issues are off limits for discussion?

How will you respond if a customer/stakeholder/community member initiates a conversation around a topic that is off limits for discussion? Do you explain why you cannot engage in this type of discourse? Ignore it? How will you handle hecklers? Trolls?

11. Will the company seek to leverage personal employee profiles?

Word of mouth marketing and recruiting efforts in social networks often work best with employee support. How will you ask for employee support in social networks without making it a requirement? How will that communication be handled? How will you respect the rights of employees and encourage willful participation? Many companies still do not allow employee access to social media sites — is this something that will need to be addressed? *Scope of conversation should only be applied to branded presences on the social web (not personal social profiles)

Forrester’s POST method

12. People

Who are you trying to reach? Assess the social media use and conversation of your customers, potential customers or other stakeholders the parent strategy needs to reach. There is a lot of existing data about who uses social media as well as monitoring services that will help you get a clear snapshot of online conversations related to your parent strategy’s objectives

13.  Objectives

Define a subset of objectives related specifically to social media and explain how they will be measured with respect to the goals of the parent strategy

14. Strategy

The missing ingredient in most social media strategies is actual strategy. Don’t skimp here. Outline exactly how the approach in the social strategy will bridge the gap between customer/stakeholder needs, existing online conversations and the company’s positioning. A well-conceived scope of conversation should come in handy here (see points 5 through 11). A good social strategy should work to increase the relevance of the brand, product or service for the people its trying to reach. How will yours accomplish this?

15. Technology

Select the technology that will help you create alignment between the people you are trying to reach. This is the place to identify specific tactics i.e. a Facebook page, a blog, a branded community, an ambassador program for influential bloggers, a Twitter profile, Foursquare loyalty program, etc. More on Forrester’s original POST method

Measurement and Reporting

16. What actions should your presence encourage?

Will you be looking primarily at increases in brand mentions? On-site engagement? Branded keyword search activity? More web traffic? Newsletter subscriptions? Pick two primary actions to focus on — they should be in natural alignment with the particular objectives of your social media and parent strategies. For more guidance on what to measure and when, see Amber Naslund’s three step series on social media measurement.

17. How will these actions accrue?

Increased activity is a way of showing early signs of life. Social media often pays off with a sort of balloon payment — short term growth tends to be spotty and small, with a bit spike in activity at a certain point that grows exponentially over time. Identifying the actions that will eventually accrue toward accomplishment of the social media strategy goals and objectives AND parent strategy goals and objectives will help keep everyone on the same page and prevent premature calculation errors

18. How will insights be shared?

How will social media insights be shared with others on the team? Department? Other departments? Executive leadership? Will you create a dashboard? Send out weekly reports? Monthly reports? This step not only keeps everyone on the same page — it helps facilitate natural discovery within the company. When presented with social media data, people in other disciplines and departments start to get curious, which inspires real learning beyond required training and professional development.

Creation and Deployment

19. Will you need development resources for launching a new site or blog?

What will the requirements be for site or application development? (don’t forget about mobile compatibility) Do you have in-house resources or will you need to put together an RFP? You may need to team up with a product manager, or a project manager to help create technical requirements and get on a development team’s schedule. Don’t forget, landing pages and other elements highlighting your social media presence may need to be incorporated into your existing company website.

20. Will you need creative resources?

A blog, new website, social profile background images, etc. may require some design work to customize the branded presence. You may also need to resize existing logos or re-orient them so they render properly on your branded social profiles. Many companies also create avatar badges for employees to use with their personal profile picture.

21. Will you need editorial content for your blog? An editorial calendar?

22. What is your timeline for launch?

Is there a natural lifecycle to this strategy? Is it long-term or short-term?

23. Prioritize needs vs. wants for launch.

What needs to be in place before launch, what elements are more iterative or okay to add later?

Education and Process Definition

24. Will there be a need for training?

How will training be handled to make sure everyone on your team is up for the task? Who will be responsible for training?

25. Are there company policies or regulatory processes that need consideration?

Many industries require prior approval for certain types of interaction as well as archiving and the use of legal disclaimers. How will you work within the rules? What will the workflow look like in order to adhere to these guidelines?

26. What about job descriptions and accountability?

If employees see social media responsibilities as something outside their actual job, how will accountability be encouraged?

Flexibility and Iteration

27. How will you re-evaluate your existing strategy?

Having a social media presence often has unexpected benefits, but to leverage them, you may need to be opportunistic, and up to date on current events and trends. How will you formalize the need to constantly re-evaluate your existing strategy without undermining its relevance?

28. How do you plan to adapt to the shifting demands of the social web where your company participates?

A social presence benefits from being responsive to the needs of the community stakeholders. This may require you to dig into issues outside of your department on occasion. How will the importance of answering these questions in a timely manner be prioritized in areas outside of your department or business unit?

Want More?

Here is a list of other resources for developing your social media strategy, or avoiding some of the common mistakes:

From Social Media to Social Strategy by Umair Haque

Develop a Social Media Strategy in Seven Steps by Jay Baer (he’s better at brevity than I am :)

5 Reasons Why Social Media Failed You by CT Moore

The 3 Types of Social Media Strategy by Tac Anderson

Social Media Strategy from A to Z by Tamar Weinberg

The Key to Developing a Social Media Strategy by Jason Falls

Real Strategy Should Align and Accrue

Still with me? I chose to beef up the first section of this post because I think each of those steps are important for setting up your social media strategy for successful integration into business processes and held up to the same standards of accountability as other departments and initiatives. Social media needs all hands on deck in one way or another. Preparing others with this expectation will help in the long run and prevent a lot of misunderstanding. Social media tends to erode operational silos whether anyone likes it or not. Silos and complicated hierarchies inhibit most businesses’ ability to thrive on the social web. However, a good social media strategy with organizational alignment should not only outline the actions that need doing, but also explain how we need to be in order to be successful. Social media is anything but a one-size-fits-all solution, but I hope having this type of comprehensive check list of questions and resources would give anyone looking to integrate social media in their business a helpful guide. At the very least, I hope this post helps get you thinking about true integration and organizational alignment beyond a bolt-on type of social media strategy. I realize there’s a lot of heavy lifting here, but I can see the payoff in this approach. Can you?

Update: June 4, 2010 – Sergio Balegno stopped by and provided me with a link to the MarketingSherpa Social Marketing ROAD Map Handbook [PDF]  he helped develop. The report is available for purchase, but the excerpt alone has a lot of valuable information.

Photo Credit: Yes, i’m guccio

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{ 64 comments… read them below or add one }

June 1, 2010 Jay Baer

Shannon -

Wowya! One hell of a post. Terrific, amazing job. Thanks very much the kind words and links, too.

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June 1, 2010 Shannon Paul

Thanks, Jay! You do great work — of course I would like to it!

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June 2, 2010 emily

Thanks for a brilliant article. Happy to see someone else is thinking about points 24-25.. Im spending lost sof time on this with my cleints at the moment!

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June 3, 2010 Shannon Paul

Emily, you’re definitely not alone. Most of us didn’t get into social media to take on policies and internal training programs, but that’s what it often takes to create lasting organizational change. Please, keep doing that : )

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June 2, 2010 Ryan Beale

Great Post, Shannon!

Anyone serious about Social Media Marketing will read this and use it as an outline when developing a social media strategy. Your detailed approach will be particularly helpful with larger firms (50+) employees in the organization. Naturally, it is easier to implement any new marketing strategy with less employees.

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June 3, 2010 Shannon Paul

Ryan,

Good point about being of particular use for larger firms, but I still see a lot of smaller businesses and startups grappling with their online presence with respect to social media — maybe a little formalization can help small businesses get clarity, too?

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June 2, 2010 Nikki Stephan

Awesome and comprehensive post, Shannon! Thanks for taking the time to put this together.

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June 2, 2010 Ryan Knott

Wow, great post! I’m working on walking my staff through the steps of incorporating social media into our communications strategy and you can bet I’ll be pointing them to this article.

Thanks!

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June 2, 2010 Petri Darby

Love this post. It is chock full of strategic and tactical social media goodness. Thanks for helping provide such an actionable guide for bringing order to something most folks are just muddling through.

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June 2, 2010 Ernesto Sosa

Great post with valuable and comprehensive information Shannon ;)

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June 2, 2010 Scott Hepburn

Dear Shannon: I was told there’s some sort of social media “shortcut” I can take. Can’t I just skip all this?

;)

Well done. I’m encouraging more clients to read brilliant posts as a way of reinforcing what I teach them. Apparently, they like hearing it from people other than me. This post is going on my “assigned reading” list.

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June 3, 2010 Shannon Paul

Scott,
If you find the shortcut, let me know :) I appreciate your adding me to your clients’ required reading list — that’s pretty cool!

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June 2, 2010 Ashley Star

Hopefully I was able to hit on a lot of these here with mine. I <3 the POST methodology, I use it very regularly!

-Ashley Star
twitter: @ashlystr

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June 3, 2010 Shannon Paul

Hey there, Ashley!

The POST methodology is still very relevant, and helps to formulate the actual direction and implementation of any campaign or long-term social media presence. I’ve found that adding the steps before and after POST in this mix help clarify social media’s place inside the org, spell out how “success” is defined and measured, and flag potential policy issues or needed support (i.e. creative/web development, editorial content, etc).

P.S. Don’t worry, I’m sure what you have is great : )

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June 2, 2010 Verndale

Great post! I really enjoyed it.

“21. Will you need editorial content for your blog? An editorial calendar?” – would you say that being consistent about your social media activity is important? How important on a scale of 1-10? In other words, should blog content be posted consistently on the same day of the week?

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June 3, 2010 Shannon Paul

Verndale,

I think it depends. I wish I had an easy answer, but there are so many variables.

For most people writing for a new blog, (people who aren’t CEOs or celebrities or established thought leaders), blogging, as in actually writing/publishing content, is about 40% of the work of being a blogger. Unless, of course, your plan is to publish a lot of content no one will read.

Most great bloggers I know with active readership are rabid consumers of other peoples’ content and they constantly promote others on their blog and on other social networking and bookmarking sites. Consuming, sharing and commenting on other peoples’ content is the bulk of the work involved in attracting readership to your site.

While this isn’t a direct answer to your question, I will say that daily activity should be done off your site (in other social networks) if you don’t have (m)any readers. How often you publish content will always depend on your goals, but if you build up your presence in the ways I mentioned first, you will have an always growing number of people interested in what you have to say on your blog no matter how frequently you publish.

For this blog (my personal blog), I commit to posting once per week. This is because I have primarily worked in-house for other companies during this time. Unlike a lot of others in the social media blogging space, I am not a consultant or agency employee. However, I feel blogging is important for my professional development, so I keep it up.

This is different for a business, but why you’re blogging and your goals for blogging should help answer that question. If readership and engagement are important for you to reach the goals of your blog, building up an off-site presence is a must.

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June 2, 2010 Jorge Barba

Shannon,

I found your blog post on Delicious, I can see why. I don’t know if you’ve heard of Marketing Experiment’s ROAD method, it’s similar to the POST method you mentioned. I’ll leave you a link to the webinar, it’s worth watching.

http://www.marketingexperiments.com/marketing-optimization/social-media-marketing-in-four-steps.html

Cheers!

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June 2, 2010 Brandon Chesnutt

Wow. You just dropped a tactical nuke of knowledge.

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June 2, 2010 Iowa Car Lawyer

Excellent strategies and advice for integration. Thanks for sharing your knowledge.

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June 3, 2010 Andrew T. Carr

Great, easy to follow piece. Thanks.

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June 3, 2010 James Whatley

Really, really good post.

*favourites

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June 3, 2010 Megan Zuniga

You surely gave out more than a chunk-load of information. Great job. Greatly beneficial for those serious in integrating social media into their marketing mix. This certainly cleared up a few things for me. I’ve read in some blogs that social media is dying and others say that any business without social media is dying. I guess before delving into it, one must cover all the bases.

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June 4, 2010 Tim Bursch

Shannon,
Very well thought out here. This is a must-have outline/framework for anyone serious about a strategy for social media.

I can see some organizations skipping over the challenge of the Foundation at their own loss.

Thank you for sharing!
Tim

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June 4, 2010 Sergio Balegno

Hi Shannon-

Thank you for this extremely informative post. Pointing out the need for a “comprehensive roadmap for developing a strong social media strategy” and the questions every marketer needs to ask is spot on! We (MarketingSherpa) have conducted studies of more than 4,200 social media marketers over the past two years and can confirm your premise.

Based on the findings from our studies, we developed the Social Marketing ROAD Map, a new methodology for creating a clear and actionable social media strategy. Here is an excerpt [ http://is.gd/ccSWY ]. Please let me know if you would like a complete copy for review.

For full disclosure, I am the lead author of the Social Marketing ROAD Map Handbook.

Thanks again for the great post!
-Sergio

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June 4, 2010 Shannon Paul

Thanks so much, Sergio! I just took a quick look at the handbook excerpt and it looks excellent! I would love to review a full copy.

I’m sorry for having such a similar headline – it was a total coincidence! I will make sure to add a link to the excerpt you provided in your comment to the post in an update.

Please keep in touch : )

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June 4, 2010 pia simeoni

Shannon, thanks for a great post. I will be using it to guide a meeting this very afternoon. I will change the order by doing the POST method before defining the scope of conversation, because we have many different audiences and the scope could be different for each. I too work in health care (Walgreens) so I look forward to reading your insights while working at BCBSMI. Best of luck in your new position!

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June 4, 2010 Tom Edwards

Outstanding post Shannon! Would add importance and discussion around extension of digital into offline and retail settings for retail centric brands and context and thought about mobile integration as part of the core social strategy. Really great post.

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June 7, 2010 adsense alternatives

Yes, the payoff in this approach is quite evident! Good on you – great article!

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June 7, 2010 Jamie Favreau

Great post and full of valuable information.

Do you think to build a better strategy that two companies can work together on one campaign? (Sponsorship between brand and team is what I am talking about here.) I believe there can be an integrated strategy but not sure if it is possible in real life.

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June 8, 2010 Murdoch Marketing

Very insightful post, I’m particular interested in #16-18 as we’re constantly searching for a better way to measure results for ourself as well as for our clients. Thanks for the excellent guidance!

-Murdoch Marketing
http://murdochmarketing.com/blog

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June 8, 2010 Kristine Allcroft

Many many thank yous for this!
Well organized and very useful – presentation format!!

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June 18, 2010 Erica McClenny

We need to do lunch in the real world! Great article that someone else sent me to via Twitter.

I preach this all day long with companies who call about our management software. I am always amazed at the large multi million dollar companies who don’t even have a goal or plan of what success looks like in an early launch, let alone a lone term strategy.

Another piece I’d add is if you’d like to go to multiple channels for reach and various types of integration…look into a tool to help keep the labor hours down. Triggered notifications, aggregation of all the conversation and content and finally a software that allows you to monitor employees who are involved in “speaking” on behalf of your brand or company. This cuts down on time when you expand too.

Great stuff!

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June 21, 2010 Wendy Boyce

Outstanding insights… I’m working towards developing a strategy for my company (a new job), and we are most definitely in the experimental stage, trying to flush out the dos and don’ts for our industry.

Thanks for this great information, I’m sure I will refer back to it often.

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July 8, 2010 Dean Smith

This is a nice checklist for those entering the world of corporate social media. Unfortunately, so many of these questions remain unanswered for a lot of companies, most likely due to lack of knowledge, budget and/or resources. This post should help to provide the knowledge, allocating the budgets can sometimes prove more difficult.

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July 10, 2010 Catherine Hamilton

Thanks for this post Shannon; I’ve definitely passed it along to others. I’m currently developing a social media strategy for the company where I work. It’s new territory for a small marketing department (6 members) and two of our key challenges are resourcing for the level of social media engagement we’d like to create and adapting our ROI models. The information you’ve provided and gathered here is a great starting point. Cheers.

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July 14, 2010 Viktor

Wow! great Work! Thank you!
Greetz from German

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July 17, 2010 Steve Latham

This is a wealth of great info, and these are the right questions brands should be asking. I agree there is not enough planning taking place before companies dive into Social Media and the old proverb “measure twice, cut once” could never be more appropriate.

Shannon – I’d like to submit my Social Media Strategy presentation (15k+ views on slideshare) for inclusion in your list of recommended resources. Take a look and judge for yourself: http://bit.ly/7AS1zT

Thanks and keep up the good work!

Steve Latham
@stevelatham

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July 20, 2010 SEOVigyan

Very nice points.

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August 10, 2010 Andre Wilson Sr.

Thank you, you hit the nail right on the head. I have been waiting for months for this information.

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August 20, 2010 Aman

Excellent post, I was doing some research on social media and came across your post and I just want to thank you for giving out some excellent strategies…

I will definitely be back. Excellent content.

Thanks.

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September 6, 2010 Ron

It’s distinguished for people to call to mind though, you need to buy a term paper online or buy written research paper just because a school isn’t the best at everything doesn’t mean it can’t be the best at several things. Essays blogs can furnish more usefull for your handiwork you can also buy essay. But first of all, my acknowledgment to this article, it has a expert interest.

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September 10, 2010 Bryna

Thank you, thank you, thank you, Shannon, for this post!!! You have no idea how timely it was for me to stumble upon it. I’ve had it open in my browser all day, have printed it off, and shared it everywhere. I was able to finally formulate the kind of blogging strategy I kept envisioning for my organziation, but not being able to put into words. This made my day!

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September 23, 2010 mesrianilaw

Great job.. If you are in to social media marketing this definitely can help you achieve your goals.

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October 19, 2010 Julie

Hi Shannon:
Thank you for the great post — very clear and succinct. The landscape for tactics is so vast and this helps to focus business objectives and strategy. Also thank you for the additional list of resources for strategy/planning.
Thanks!
Julie
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/julie-schlax-patrick/1/709/424

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November 9, 2010 Bart

Hi Shannon,
If you have to put your roadmap in a visual model, how would that look like?
Greets, Bart

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November 17, 2010 Umidificador

Many ways to measure the success of social media, so be sure to identify key indicators before starting. I recommend solid pick three criteria to follow.

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December 17, 2010 Anthony Robinson

This is a very very effective article. Both from an consultants point of view and a employee responsible for the sucess of such campaigns.

Anthony Robinson
CEO | XEO Internet Design

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December 24, 2010 Internship China

This is a roadmap that you should use to across the next few years as your corporate website evolves, fusing in social features.The strategist should certainly find out where their customers and prospects are in social networks, and then use the right social networks depending on that region.

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January 14, 2011 Andrew @ Blogging Guide

Thanks for these comprehensive questions. I most especially like #8 since everyone on the team should be on the same page. If this does not happen then customers will be confused as what is what and who is who. And that is not a good thing to happen since it will result to disappointment and loss of customers.

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January 19, 2011 Wayne Eells

This was great. The only thing that could make it better would be to have laid it out in a “Mind Map.”

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January 22, 2011 Rosie

Shannon,
Thank you. I’m an Organizational Development professional who strives to integrate every process into every plan and mail box. This will help us with our own social media.
Thanks!!!
Rosie

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February 10, 2011 Karin

Thanks for this article-it is a great summary of the back to basics book I am writing on this very topic! I am no longer surprised by the things people say to either dismiss the idea of using Social Technologies in their business or their enthusiasm to “get at it” without any real plan to figure out *how* it is going to benefit their business strategy/goals. I do like that it keeps some of us busy :)

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March 29, 2011 Nishith Mathur

Brilliant post.. This is one of the most comprehensive and very informative blog post that I have read about defining a social media strategy roadmap.

Thanks a ton for this. Keep up the good work.:-))
Cheers !!

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April 5, 2011 Jay

It doesn’t matter how small or large your business, everyone should have a hand in social media these days. It’s important to connect with your clients.

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April 6, 2011 Mariah

That’s right jay, social media is the trump card to promote website visibility. It’s the easiest and best way to generate leads, at the same time reach our clients.

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April 16, 2011 Vizz Media

Thanks Shannon for sharing this wonderful post. Social Media is effective. But practicing Social Media just for the sake of giving our brands an online presence is not going to work. We need to have a road-map for our efforts to make sure we are not wasting time in doing some unnecessary work. Social Media is a support to our existing business strategies and Social Media strategies should be in proper alignment with other business strategies to make them effective.

http://www.facebook.com/vizzmedia

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April 24, 2011 James Williams

Wow, what an informative article!

With many of my clients, I steer them away from facebook marketing as a product and more as an added bonus to a normal social hub like a blog. When ever I create a new website or blog for someone , I create it with automatic facebook and twitter updating.

I show people that using these tools is beneficial, but it is not where your main effort should be focused. No one can doubt the power and reach of facebook, so as a marketing porfessional, it would be irresponsible to not use it.

I stress continuously updating clients blog/site, a strong focus on link building and creating marketing campaigns that focus on ROI and targeted traffic.

Content is KING and relevance is the Queen. Establishing yourself as a professional/expert and positioning yourself as the king of content and your site as the queen of relevance you will do well.

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April 25, 2011 amex blue sky

I can’t wait for cod8 to come out for DS!!

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May 15, 2011 Aman

Great post, I didn’t realize its about 10 months old until now however most of the strategies are still valid.

Thanks for your insights.

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  • links for 2010-06-01 June 2, 2010
  • How To Develop a Social Media Strategy: A Roadmap for Integration — Very Official Blog « Netcrema – creme de la social news via digg + delicious + stumpleupon + reddit June 2, 2010
  • iLibrarian » How To Develop a Social Media Strategy: A Roadmap for Integration June 2, 2010
  • Long or Short Social Strategy: Part 1 – Long Term :: Greg de Lima June 3, 2010
  • How to develop a social media strategy June 4, 2010
  • How To Develop a Social Media Strategy: A Roadmap for Integration « Socialmediamaniac247's Blog June 7, 2010
  • @Nerde » Blog Archive » Veckans artiklar från Google Reader June 7, 2010
  • Spring feed reader cleaning (Small Business E-commerce Link Digest – June 11, 2010) June 11, 2010
  • Useful links from the last few days June 13, 2010
  • Dragan Varagic Blog » Social Media Strategy Templates Recommendations June 19, 2010
  • How to Develop a Social Media Strategy | Social Media Manager July 8, 2010
  • News Update – Best of the Day July 14, 2010
  • links for 2010-07-14 « pr-trends July 14, 2010
  • And so it begins… « Coberly Communications July 23, 2010
  • id tags » A PR Pro’s Secret Weapon: Asking Smart Questions July 27, 2010
  • 9 ონლაინ რესურსი თქვენი მძლავრი სოც. მედია სტრატ� July 30, 2010
  • How to develop a Social Media Strategy. A post for beginners. | A Little Bird Told Me August 17, 2010
  • Social Media Strategy August 22, 2010
  • Why Groundswell Is Still My Favorite Social Strategy Book | Content for a Convergent World August 23, 2010
  • A Business Approach to Twitter « VEMGlobal.com Blog September 14, 2010
  • Social Media Professionals: How Techie Should We Be? — Very Official Blog October 3, 2010
  • Weekend Favs October Thirteen | Wizpress.com November 14, 2010
  • Weekend Favs October Thirteen November 16, 2010
  • Best Internet Marketing Posts of 2010 » Techipedia | Tamar Weinberg January 5, 2011
  • 2010最佳网络营销文章大全[英文] - Hafid Xu January 6, 2011
  • The 12 most useful social media posts I’ve ever read | 香港新媒體協會 January 10, 2011
  • Deciding on a social media strategy | Nick Chase, Private Programmer January 18, 2011
  • Specific to digital marketing, how do you define strategy? - Quora January 31, 2011
  • How To Develop a Social Media Strategy | ICT for CEO February 5, 2011
  • Virginia is for lovers. And, apparently shy PR professionals. If your hospital is starting to consider communication through social media, this is one way to develop your strategy… | Social Media and Virginian Hospitals July 8, 2011
  • Virginia is for lovers. And, apparently shy PR professionals. Some inspiration for Virginia PR… | Social Media and Virginian Hospitals July 11, 2011
  • How are you going to monetize that? « Direct Marketing Observations November 2, 2011
  • 7 Must-Read Social Media Articles | Weekend reading list – Week 26 – 2010 November 11, 2011
  • 8 Must-Read Social Media Articles | Weekend reading list – Week 27 – 2010 November 11, 2011

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